NIAAA's multi-year, multi-site collaborative study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) is anticipated between September 1997 and April 1998 to report the first results from the systematic search in a large sample of informative families for chromosomal regions and candidate genes involved in alcoholism vulnerability. During the same 6-month period, NIAAA's intramural Laboratory of Neurogenetics is expected to publish the results of independent linkage analyses in populations with high prevalence of severe alcoholism and other psychiatric disorders. This rapidly mounting knowledge of the essential mechanisms and etiology of alcohol dependence ultimately will produce new prevention strategies targeted at-risk individuals and population subgroups and new pharmacological treatments designed to arrest alcoholism at multiple points in its progression. The objective of this contract is to require the contractor to serve as a sole source of strategic support for media activities related to the above research dissemination campaign, specifically for: (1) strategic planning, research, and message development; (2) resources/materials development; (3) media outreach; (4) events management and outcome evaluation; and (5) secondary dissemination and long-term public education strategy.
